Jesus Is Not A Copy Cat – Part 1

Atheists won’t give up on trying to prove Jesus is just a conglomeration of Greek/Roman/Indian/Asian mythologies and religions. The latest article I have read is WTF – The story of Jesus isn’t unique? Of course it isn’t on Atheism Resource [AR]. This article tells a little story that sounds like Jesus, and then it says oh wait, nope it’s XYZ god. There are virtually no resources sited, and when asked to site resources in the comments, the author claims he will post them, and when he’s pressed for to do it, others chime in a tell the commentor to research it himself. I decided I will go through the list and use what resources I can find to investigate their claims.

Asklepois

They claim he was the son of the highest god, and biggest healer in antiquity. Healed the deaf, blind, and paralyzed with just a touch. They also claim he was called Savior (in the article Savior is spelled Saviour which leads me to believe this is a copy and paste job anyway because the author is not British/Australian). The interesting thing is, Atheism Resources, sites a website as reference. Indeed this website says he did heal, and was a surgeon. He honed his skills even to the point of raising the dead. One story the website tells is of a serpent climbing up his staff, he kill the serpent, then along came another serpent with a herb in it’s mouth which revived the dead serpent. Asklepois is not considered divinity, but is merely a human. I cannot find him being referred to as savior. Asklepois’ story is nothing like Jesus’

Hercules

Atheism Resource claims Hercules was born of a mortal virgin, told his beloved disciple to take care of his (Hercules) mother, and said ‘It is finished’ when he died, and his greatest accomplishment was the conquer death. According the the mythology, Hercules is the illegitimate son of Zeus and Alcmene. Hera was enraged at Zeus for his infidelity with Alcmene. Zues had sex with Alcmene (otherwise it wouldn’t have been infidelity), thus Hercules was not born of a virgin. The death of Hercules was nothing I had ever read before and it is kind of funny. I won’t go into detail, read about the death of Hercules here at Wikipedia. Hercules’ story is nothing like Jesus’

Prometheus

The article on Atheism Resource states Prometheus was the savior (again with the British spelling on AR), who wanted to save sinful humans by sacrificing himself out of love and compassion. The true story of Prometheus is he was entrusted with the task of molding mankind out of clay. That is where the similarities between Prometheus and Jesus end. Prometheus attempted to better the lives of his creation with fire and such. This made Zeus mad. Zeus bound Prometheus to a stake where an eagle was release to feed on his ever regenerating liver. Prometheus was later set free by Hercules. Like with most mythology there are several differing stories about Prometheus. As far as I can find Prometheus doesn’t have a story about his death. Prometheus’ story is nothing like Jesus’

Dionysos

Atheism Resource sites a lot of the same for Dionysos; born of a mortal virgin, portrayed as an infant or riding a donkey, healed the sick, he turned water into wine, and his followers often eat a holy meal in a kind of sacrament. According to the myth, Zeus had another affair with a mortal. To make a long story short, Dionysos was born from the thigh of Zeus after his mother was consumed in the lightnings of Zeus. For the uneducated, this is not a virgin birth by a mortal woman. I cannot find any reference to him being portrayed riding on a donkey or even as an infant. He is most commonly portrayed as a mature bearded, robed man holding a fennel staff or as a beardless, naked or half-naked youth. He was the god of wine, or god of the grape harvest. I cannot find confirmation that he turned water into wine, the story I read said he grew grapes, harvested them, and fermented them as instructed by Ikarios. In one story I found where they claimed his death is what caused humanity to come into existence, but nothing about being a savior to humankind. The only resource I can find that says Jesus is a copycat of Dionysos is a section in Wikipedia where they are trying to parallel Jesus and Dionysos’ life. Dionysos’ story is nothing like Jesus’

Horus

I’ve already written about Horus in another blog post you can read: Jesus == Horus?

Osiris

The article on AR claims Osiris is the light of the world, was born of a virgin, was considered the first true king, he defeated death and must be considered the single true god. Like all of the others, Osiris was not born of a virgin. He is the eldest son of Geb, the earth god, and Nut the sky goddess. He died and became the god of the dead or king of the afterlife. I cannot find information to confirm or deny the other claims. Osiris’ life is nothing like Jesus’

About The Author

Hi, I'm Brandon. I am a Christian, husband, father, web developer, musicians and many other labels. I enjoy learning and understanding how things work. I look at the world and the things around me and I want to understand it. This is a blog of my thoughts, ideas and questions as I try to understand the world. Along with this blog I am also the developer and co-founder of Theology in Progress (www.theologyinprogress.com).

2 Comments

I’m the author from AtheismResource.com. Your confirmation bias doesn’t let you see this. Sure, apsects of Jesus are unique. But, his story has bits and pieces and large chunks shared by other religions… many that pre-date Christianity. Read Bart Erhman or David Fitzgerald (or Richard Carrier). The New Testament is one of the most unreliable, error prone collection of books ever written. We have ZERO original copies and have found thousands of errors in the copies. The gospels don’t agree with each other and tell wildly different stories… historically accepted (even by theologians)as NOT being written by anyone that ever actually met Jesus (Paul flat out admits he never met Jesus). If you want to base your life on that, go ahead, but we choose logic, reason, critical thinking, and evidence. thanks, but no thank. I believed once… but then I grew up.

You are an atheist too… to every god you listed above (and the other 4,000+ in human history). I just go one god further than you.

I can see where little bits of Jesus’ life is seen in other religions, but from what I’ve researched it looks like the descriptions of the mythical gods in your article were complete fabrications. You wrote (or copied and pasted as I suspect) without listing sources and nobody except a few Christians even questioned it. Your article is not true to reason and evidence.

You read the stories of the gods in Roman and Greek mythology and they seem to be there to fill in the gaps of what we don’t understand, like you often say. The God of Christianity is more about purpose, community, relationship, and morality.

I don’t see where the gospels don’t agree, and tell wildly different stories. I’ve read the gospels, and I see the same story from different points of view.

We may not have the original manuscripts, but we have over 24,000 ancient texts that include copies of the original manuscripts, and quotations of the original texts in early church leaders writings. With all of these manuscripts there are variations in the text, but none that affects major doctrines of the church.

Paul wasn’t an eyewitness to Jesus’ life, but in Galatians, Paul’s first epistle written around 50-60 A.D, says he received the gospel from Jesus Christ himself through revelation. That’s as good as an eye witness, and Peter and other early church leaders, who were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life, validated the gospel Paul was preaching and teaching.